About Me

From the age of three (according to my parents) I’ve been into playing with electronic devices. Throughout the school years I spent many hours programming some of the 80s era computers (ZX Spectrum, BBC model B, Atari ST etc.), building electronic devices (famous disco lights) and bridging these two areas with some robotics.

When I left high school, I moved onto college, studying technical A-levels, followed by an electronics degree (see my linkedin profile for more details there). During this time I did much experimenting with low power radio transmitters, building my own audio equipment (loudspeakers, amplifiers etc.) of note a negative impedance power amplifier (ask me about this if you’re interested), and started programming embedded systems.

Moving into the commercial world, I got a job doing both embedded and DOS/Windows programming for control of servo-hydraulic test equipment. The job was pretty diverse and I got to do a fair bit of travelling. After 11 years at that I moved into the automotive engineering world joining a major Tier 1 components supplier. Here I did a lot of work on embedded control and runtime diagnostics of electronic power steering. Eventually I was promoted to functional integration (systems) team leader which I stuck out for a total of 9 years.

Since then I moved to being an Engineering Consultant for a major consultancy firm in the UK. This is mainly (but not limited to) automotive work, where my role is a Functional Safety Consultant. I won’t labour on defining this, but it is essentially implementing Isaac Asimov’s “First Law of Robotics”.

I should add at this point that the opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and are expressed in a private capacity. These do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employers, present or past.

Over the years I’ve designed and built well over 100 electronic systems which are incredibly diverse in nature. So far I’ve designed these, and used these personally and limited my scope in that capacity. Having recently (and after many years in the waiting) visited the HOPE 9 (edit: and now HOPE X) conference in New York, I’ve realised that so much more can be accomplished through putting my ideas and designs out to a wider community through publishing these as open-source hardware and software. So, here it is…

Oh, yes and if you read this far and remain interested in some of the darker projects – see my sister blog.